Review: Nokia 808 PureView

When the Nokia 808 PureView was announced earlier this year its 41MP camera sensor (for a maximum output resolution of 38MP) made headlines all over the tech industry. Not only does it feature the highest-resolution sensor of any mobile phone camera, but at the time of writing, the 808 PureView features the highest-resolution sensor of any current camera outside of highly specialist (and very costly) medium format equipment.

We've been eager to gets our hands on an 808 since the phone was announced, and a loan sample finally arrived in our Seattle office recently. We've been using it ever since. Please note though that this article doesn't touch on the 808 PureView's performance as a phone. That's not what interests us. We want to see what it's like as a camera...

Features

The Nokia 808 PureView's large CMOS sensor has 41MP total, outputting a maximum of 38MP (resolution drops to 36MP in 16:9 aspect ratio). Such a high resolution sensor would be little more than a stunt if the camera specifications aren't up to scratch, but Nokia has designed the 808 to be a serious photographic tool. As well as some pretty impressive hardware, Nokia has also included a raft of enthusiast-friendly photographic features in the 808 including manual control over white balance, ISO and exposure (via exposure compensation and bracketing). Exposure compensation is as good as it gets though, in terms of manual exposure control - the 808 does not offer PASM modes (not unsurprisingly).

This diagram shows the size of the Nokia 808 PureView's 1/1.2" sensor in comparison to those used in various compact cameras and mobile phones. A Four Thirds sensor is included for scale.

As you can see, the 808 PureView is packing quite an impressive sensor, much larger than those found in compact cameras, and not that much smaller than the CX-format sensors used by Nikon in its 1-system and Sony's recently-announced Cyber-shot RX100.

The Finnish company is at pains to point out that when it comes to image capture, the 808's headline specification of 41MP is far from the whole story. In fact, one of the reasons why Nokia has incorporated such a high pixel count is to allow the 808 to produce better quality lower-resolution images (3MP, 5MP or 8MP).

The 808 PureView runs the effectively-defunct Symbian operating system. Future PureView-equipped phones will almost certainly run a version of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.

The interesting stuff for us is on the back of the phone. The 808's camera module is quite a lump - not surprising considering the size of the sensor. The 808 also features a xenon flash and F2.4 Carl Zeiss lens.

The camera interface is relatively simple but versatile. In the PureView capture modes (8MP/5MP/3MP) you can zoom by simply swiping vertically on the screen.

Nokia makes a spring-loaded clamp with a tripod screw on the base to allow you to use the 808 on a tripod for self-portraits, group shots, or long exposures.

While it might sound counterintuitive to shoot a 38MP camera at 3MP, it actually makes a lot of sense in a device of this type. Apart from anything else, if you are one of those people whose first reaction to this product was to scream 'you don't need 41MP in a camera phone! The world has gone mad! The sky is falling in!' in a sense you were right - most people simply don't need to capture such high-resolution images on a phone.

But what you probably do want from a cellphone camera is good image quality, decent speed and responsiveness, and wouldn't it be nice to have a zoom, too? That's what the 808's lower-resolution PureView modes are designed to allow.

PureView (3/5/8MP)

Putting optical zooms into cellphone cameras is hard. Really really hard, which is why manufacturers tend to include digital zooms instead. Effectively just cropping and upsizing, conventional digital zoom kills image quality. Normally, the instinct of any serious digital photographer would be to run away from 'digital zoom' features for precisely this reason. But the 808 is very far from conventional.

Images captured in the 808's PureView modes are created by oversampling from the sensor's full resolution. At the 808's 'native' focal length of 28mm equivalent, the oversampling ratio is 14:1 for 3MP images, compared to 8:1 for 5MP and 5:1 for 8MP.

In Nokia's words, 'pixel oversampling combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel'. In theory then, at 28mm (equivalent) - i.e., without any 'zoom', the camera's 3MP PureView output should give the best critical image quality, followed by 5MP, then 8MP, and then 38MP. When fully zoomed in, all four output modes will give the same pixel-level image quality, since at this point there is no oversampling going on -as incated by '1:1' in the graph above.

PureView 'Zoom'

How much you can 'zoom' using the 808 depends on what output resolution mode you're in. If you're shooting at full resolution you can't zoom at all - you're stuck with the lens' native 28mm (equivalent) focal length. In 3MP PureView mode you get the equivalent of a 3.6X 'zoom' - this drops to roughly 3X in 5MP mode, and about 2X in 8MP mode. The table below shows four images, taken at the 'longest' extent of the 'zoom' in each of the 808's output resolution modes.

38 MP (1X)

8 MP (~2X)

5 MP (~3X)

3 MP (~3.6X)

Compared to today's travelzoom compacts a 3.6X zoom is nothing much to shout about, but it's better than no zoom at all or - worse - a conventional digital zoom that upsizes cropped images into mush. Even a 2X zoom in 8MP mode allows a useful degree of control over framing, as you can see from the image above.

Comments

I had an old Motorola candy bar phone with a Kodak 5M camera. I bought it knowing it would take better photos than any other phone at the time. I wish my current HTC incredible 8Mpx phone took photos half as good as my old phone did.

Great quality shots from your phone are a revelation! Wish I had the 808. Go Nokia!

Your Motozine did factually not take the best pictures at the time, the Nokia N82 not only took better pictures than the Zine but also had a more powerful Xenon flash, more precise Zeiss optics and a much larger sensor.

Great review, wisely chosen words!I've been using the 808 for 6 weeks and am happy with it, even Symbian is ok for my personal needs but of course it looks dated next to modern OS.But this is just the beginning, there will certainly be Windows Phone flagship devices that will better the 808 is due time. My only regret is that Nokia dumped Meego.

About 50 people have left Nokia to start up their own company called Jolla to make and sell MeeGo smartphones. They have €10 million financing to build their first device and have already teamed up with China's largest phone retailer to sell it, so they have the money and the contacts. See what eventuates. So it's not just you wanting to see MeeGo operational:

I'm wondering once they release it if it'll just be for their phones or if it can be ported to the 808. I doubt they can do their own smartphone with this sort of camera any time soon.

Then there's also the Linux Foundation's open-source Tizen meant to succeed MeeGo. That should work on the 808 eventually. Either way, I assume there'd have to be a specific 808 camera app written by someone for both MeeGo and Tizen.

Yes shame about no Maemo/Meego with Pureview. It would have been a killer. Elop made his choice and now it's up to Nokia to focus its resources and make Pureview as impressive on the WP platform as it is on Symbian. If Nokia announces a 41mp Pureview WP in the fall lineup I will be SO impressed.

I don't want to be too pessimistic but to make a successful OS these days that major developers support, that big companies make their apps for (like my bank, my newspaper and such) is almost impossible, certainly a couple of ex Nokia employees with 10 mill won't be able to do it. It'll be fine for nerds just like Maemo was, but it has no chance in the marketplace. Sadly.

The surprise is that anyone did it. And the big surprise is that it was on a phone. And maybe the even bigger surprise is that it was Nokia. I would have guessed Samsung. They have their own manufacturing of sensors.

So - the big question right now is: when will camera makers dare to do over sampling?

Oversampling may not be new but when Nokia first started designing this phone over 5 years ago there was no other camera with it, the 1st camera to introduce binning was the Phase One 65+ which didn't start selling until a year after Nokia had begun working on "pureview"

I wonder, does this pixel over-sampling trick has any affect on bokeh, when comparing 38MP and 3MP same close up shots?Pureview technology is meant to look for sharpest (best) pixels in the over-sampling process, so how it behaves in the blurred parts of the picture?

I think DS's point is that if Pureview's algorithm aims for sharpness, how does it render areas that you actually want to be smooth, i.e. Bokeh. You don't want it to sharpen the endges or highlights in the bokeh.

If it was a straight crop, this wouldnt be a problem. But Pureview is trying to be smarter than that to increase image quality.

Technically Android is step back, like VHS to Betamax video recorder formats. Android needs more memory and processor power, needs more developer efforts, is less environment friendly, but addicted simple people prefers it, i.e. people prefers giving more money to billionaires losing their time on tapping and seeing Android phone ;)

A separate volume control for music and ringtones would be a start! Support for memory cards, Bluetooth file exchange, background download of podcasts blah blah blah.... these are all showstoppers for me.

Windows Phone as it stands is seriously compromised compared to Android, iOS and even Symbian - a lot of style overs substance.

However, looking forward to Windows Phone 8, hopefully it should plug some of the major gaps, especially if it can support PureView technology.

@BrunoH. I need an app called MyLifeOrganized, a to-do list/project management database enabling multiple sorting of action items, eg sort action items by context, or by date, or by project. It's available for the competing platforms, but not for WP. The developer says it depends on uptake. Unfortunately WP, which ought to be the business choice, lacks business apps (see this post on WP forum, for example: http://forums.wpcentral.com/marketplace-apps/186782.htm).

In addition I like the Samsung Note form factor and pen/drawing capability. This, apparently, is not visible in any WindowsPhone road maps I've seen.

Don't worry. Everything you mentioned (and lots more) are in the new Windows Phone 8 OS. Look at the new Nokia phones coming this fall and I think you will not be disappointed, especially if they got pureview built in! :-)

@Tadeusz60: I can say all of those about every phone platform and manufacturer. They're hurting environment and someone's trying to get their grubby hands on your money.

Why people like or even "need" android? Because it makes their life easier. I need Gotomeeting on my phone because that's company's conferencing software of choice. I want the mobile banking app, remote control of my entertainment center, I want a good browser, webgl support. I would like good integration with google contracts, calendar, etc. And I want to write my own programs for it, no dev tools for linux. I want to be able to tinker around.

Some people use their phones for a helluva lot things and like to keep it that way.

And don't forget that Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will have the same runtime, which means that Windows 8 apps will be easily ported to Windows Phone 8. I am not missing any major apps on my Windows Phone, actually there are far more apps than I ever care to look at :-)

True. apps have been coming slower to WP7 although they are coming. But apps will be very easily ported between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. So do all these companies making iOS apps just ignore the whole Windows market? I don't think so. they will make apps for Windows 8, and then porting to Windows Phone 8 is just a setting in the compiler - easy done. My guess is that the synergy with Windows 8 will push Windows Phone 8 forward a lot.

and one more thing...

Pen support is built in to Windows 8 tablets. Which could be shipped in any size hardware makers want. So for pen input and bigger screens than a phone, there will probably be some options this holiday season.

Unflexible OS? On WP the PureView technology is not supported (yet?). By using their own OS they were able to make it work. Symbian is still widely used in Europe, my next phone will likely be Symbian, too. I don't like the locks of iOs, Android is a little better, WP8 possibly...

Meanwhile there is a lot to like in Symbian too. You'll be transferring your images in a bar by blue-tooth out of the box, displaying your library on your friends HDMI TVEnjoy real multitasking in stressful job environment, built in SIP (Voip), FM broadcasting of your music, free off-line navigation (ok, this great feature has recently been assimilated by MS through Nokia), creative camera applications being ported from the previous premier camera smartphone N8, etc.. extra long battery life when out in the bush and you need a reliable phone.

That said, the Symbian limit for screen resolution is really bothersome and Nokia's best modern OS to date is still Maemo (or the Harmattan-MeeGo version on the N9).

@ BrunoHWhen the Nokia N8 was released I did not want to touch it but a year later nothing better was out yet.Symbian will be around till 2016 (unless Nokia cheats their loyal consumers once more)Sure you can wait for WP8 to be released later this year. Then another year at least till PureView Camera tech gets finally integrated in a WP8 Nokia. (I know, so called really soon)

Today Symbian has all the real smartphone features it had for years, features which iOS and WP are still adding in their next iteration of OS + it offers Pureview technology.

I don't think MS is happy that their new smartphone hardware division launches this technology on the old platform which was declared "dead" by ex-employee Elop taking Nokia CEO office while saying exactly the same thing as you do: wait for the Windows Phone 7 Nokia's later this year (2011). Well they were just phones, they are in the bargain bin right now and Symbian still offers the candy.Sorry , dev cycles are too long to wait.

The high ISO images (ISO 1600) in good light look good at normal viewing size, but the low-light ISO 1600 have some banding issues like the 2nd image (pool players) and the 6th image (purple bedside lamp) and blotchiness.

It's clear that the Zeiss lens is extremely sharp (like the RX100 lens which is impressive) although there seems to be some wavy mustache distortion seen in the 10th image (Do Not Disturb).

As for use of this tech in a cell phone, fitting such a large sensor is hard. However, the little Zeiss optic on this phone appears to resolve well enough to essentially match the sensor -- which is really impressive.

An APS-C sensor with the same density would have about 165MP. The real benefit to that and higher pixel counts in APS-C and larger cameras will be different from what it is in a compact/cell-phone form factor: out-resolving the lens will solve a lot of problems. That said, if Zeiss can create an optic like the one in this cell phone, perhaps they can build a smallish, fast, optic for APS-C cameras (especialy the NEX line) that can resolve 165MP? ;)

808 has a plastic lens, as it is possible to make extremely good small plastic lenses cheaply, fairly fast diffraction limited even in this case. Bigger ones are not possible due to softness of the material, so bigger lenses must be glass, which can not be pressed but have to be ground to shape which is comparatively hugely expensive.

Well, according to Zeiss (quoted at Nokia's WWW site), the problem is that "a larger plastic surface area expands and shrinks too much at different temperatures." Glass is frequently pressed into aspherical shapes (most of my modern lenses have at least one such surface), but according to the same article, the plastic lenses used are extreme asphericals that "seem dimpled" - with shapes beyond what glass easily does.

The APS-C sensor needs an image circle just over 2X this diameter -- and the 808 diagonal is about 1.9X bigger than typical cell phone sensors, so we're halfway there with plastics. ;) Diffractive optics give an alternative way to cheaply implement complex optical transforms. I don't think we'll see 165MP APS-C lenses soon, but I think applying the same level of cleverness and new tech to design of lenses for mirrorless systems should get us there.

Wow, you were not kidding with its image quality and Gold award! I compared it to an S100, XZ-1, and LX5 and they look like a joke to this phone at ISO 200 and beyond. At first, as I expecting any compacts will beat the Nokia in higher ISOs due to its high MP count (same pixel pitch though) but no, it was clearly the opposite.I hope this sends a message to the companies above that compacts need a larger sensors like the RX100.Put this on a modern OS, I'll get my first smartphone.

Most better compacts DO beat the 808 at high ISO. ISO 800 is pretty much the last usable setting on the 808. ISO 1600 looks unusable. The 1/2.3" Fuji X10 you can safely shoot to ISO 3200 with good detail, and unobtrusive noise. And an S100 with it's 1/1.7" sensor can comfortably shoot at ISO 3200.

Having shot the RX100 for the past week, it's great, but the X10 with the slightly smaller sensor and faster lens can achieve some nicer shallow DOF images at the long end. But both cameras have much better DR than the 808 which clearly has a major issue with clipping highlights. That's a major bummer.

Then congratulations to your new Lumia Phone! In September Nokia will showcase their new hardware lineup for Windows Phone 8. I bet Pureview will be in a Lumia Phone by then. That Windows Phone is the smartphone OS with highest customer satisfaction rating is nothing to sneeze at either.

@marike6I think what you're referring to is the absence of noise, which is done in-software/camera. There is clearly less noise but the detail is lost, smearing actually. The x10 is actually the worst of compacts with huge loss of detail at the absence of noise.

@BrunoHSeptember, then that's just a month away. Hope they could add more than just an OS change. Imagine a slim camera, better than compacts in terms of IQ and LCD which happens to include a smartphone! LOL!

We don't have the precise control over white balance and exposure that we'd need to do our standard resolution test, but we're working on ways to get around these limitations when testing mobile devices...

Impressive, as i thought. the highlight clipping was a little disappointing and the HDR feature on my HTC has just arrived with an upgrade. So i'm sure thats no real hassle for a Nokia firmware upgrade.

With technology advancing like it has, this was inevitable. Compacts may well be in danger

Thanks Dpr, that was a justifiable and well put together review. I know you have issues being pushed for time and so many reviews to do.

Not available in Australia unless buying the whole handset from an importer.

I did use exposure compensation quite a lot, but it isn't always reported accurately in exif (I'm using Adobe Bridge CS6 and it doesn't display at all). As for camera movement, I really hope that you can't see camera movement, but send me a PM with the images you suspect and I'll take a closer look.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something you're saying — and I might be — I think you misunderstand the relationship between zooming and cropping as they affect depth of field. Assuming you print at the same size, and assuming you have enough resolution to actually resolve a distinction between blur and sharpness, Nokia's optical zoom should actually provide just as much blur effect as a real greater focal length.

I have the first iPhone and have taken a few pictures with it. I'd say if I get a clear 600X800 I'm lucky. I'm watching this market closely to see if a smartphone can replace my small compact... just one less thing to carry. With a different operating system, I think this would do it.

A 38 megapixel phone with a Zeiss lens, in a package that looks like something desgined for the 1964 Worlds Fair. Wild. I'd like it a lot better without the phone but I suppose you can turn that part off. I've been saying all along that anybody can take "professional" photos with auto-everything cameras (Sony even auto-composes) and soon everybody will be equiped to do so.

I am using the Nokia 808 PureView for some weeks now and I am still impressed by its image quality. This phonecam gives me a lot of fun and I appreciate dp's review. I agree with most of dp's conclusions.

So much money for an average compact camera with an obsolete phone attached! Similar price to an unlocked iPhone 4s or Galaxy S III, which both do a decent job of taking snapshots... sorry Nokia, the camera concept is good, but the package does not appeal.

It's a camera review site, not a smartphone review site. In your opinion then no matter how impressive the camera is, the package "does not appeal" unless it's attached as part of either Google's or Apple's latest and greatest?

i have the htc one x with latest android os..but i am using the 808 as my main phone...well..yes the camera is just superb on the other hand while my htc cries for a recharge after 7 hours of my normal use...my 808 lasted me 2 days without charging...

@wy2lam: If you were telling that this is a camera review site, then I must say this "Camera 808" does not appeal. As a camera it provides no optical zoom, poor dynamic range, incomplete set of camera features, and the image quality is only on par with some low level DC.

If it is a pure camera, I will say it can only get a pass score. We rate it a high score because it is a "phone camera". So when we talk about its value, talk it in whole: the camera, the phone, the OS, etc etc.

To be fair we need to compare it to other devices in it's class.For example, your method of comparison would see cameras like the new EOS-M or Nikon 1 compared directly to the Canon 1DX, (because they're all just cameras), which really isn't a relevant as they're completely different beasts.

Here at DPR, which is a photography based site, I think the 808 should be defined as being a phone camera with the review focusing on the camera. If we want to see a review on the phone as a whole then we should look for reviews on the dedicated phone review sites rather than here.

I bought one myself for my wife actually. And the best way to describe this phone is to be treated as a fujifilm X100 equivalent, a fixed focal lens camera that give exceptional quality and convenience.

Frankly speaking, I totally agree with your point. And that's also the reason DPR gave awards to the reviewed cameras, which did great jobs in their own classes.

My first post is because ismith presented his/her feeling that the "package" itself does not appeal. But wy2lam stated that ismith should focus on the camera. Well, actually ismith did not say the camera is bad. We all know this is a camera site. But we can still point out that the good camera does not make the overall phone attractive, can we? ;-)

I think you miss the point. This product is a phone with an amazing development in camera performance for such devices - and certainly if you want the best 'cameraphone' this is the right product for you, but the camera isn't good enough to replace my old compact, and the technology of the phone won't do all the things I can do with an Apple or Android system. I am allowed to by narrow minded about the products I buy, especially when I want the best from both camera and phone. If they do release a Windows/Android version, then 'the package' will appeal more to me.

My biggest dislike of camera phones is the horrible ergonomics. I'll have to read this review more carefully -- it sounds like this might have a better physical shutter button than most. I've noticed that there are a lot of really bad photos out there on social media that have been taken with phones. One issue is that while more people than ever have phones, a lot of people lack basic technique and composition, or it simply isn't a priority for them given the circumstances, which is fair enough for spontaneous snap shots. But, I really think that having to try and hold a cameraphone still that has an awkward shape, maybe not even have a physical shutter button, which you then have to contort your thumb or index finger to take a picture, causing camera shake, is just not a good idea. I find the camera on my i-product occasionally convienient, but never enjoyable.

I don't know, if it is me, but I have not been impressed at all by the samples and pictures provided there. Maybe I forgot how picture from point-and-shoot looks like, but these look mushy and really camera-phone like. Best point and shoots with smaller sensor (LX3 comes to mind) provide sharper outputs..

It's not you. I'm impressed by the images DPR took, but not the quality. They are great for a phone, but remember that when this camera was announced people here were sounding the death knell for P&S yet I can think of any number of high end compacts that spank this camera phone. The worse part is the highlight roll-off and DR.

It's very impressive that Nokia have followed through with such an innovative product, which must have taken quite an investment in R&D. It's such a shame that we can't expect to see a camera like this on an Android phone any time soon.

Out of interest, is there any reason not to shoot with it in 38MP mode all the time? Correct me if I'm wrong, but (fantastic though the specs are) it sounds very much like any other digital zoom, just with a much more detailed initial image to work with.

That's inconvenient, but still worth it. Shooting in full resolution means you're reserving the option to zoom (i.e. crop) until post-processing. Shooting in zoomed mode, or a lesser megapixel non-zoomed mode, just means discarding information needlessly, which is something I'm not willing to do.

You're half wrong about the on-screen histogram, it will display when you select exposure compensation. Unfortunately half-pressing the shutter button makes it vanish again...

Interestingly you haven't mentioned either of my two biggest bugbears with it though:

* The inexcusable lack of a lens cover. Holding it in portrait mode pretty much guarantees you'll stick fingerprints all over the lens. I've had to resort to wrapping it in a lens cloth when it's in my pocket...

* The lack of image stabilization. I don't really have a problem when using it at 8MP, but I get a lot of shake problems at 38MP. I want to use the full resolution when I can.

The lens cover thing might not be such an issue if it weren't for the fact that the optional cover ($$$) isn't readily available in the UK. I've had to order mine from Amazon US, and I've been given a ship date of 1-4 months. Similar problems with the tripod mount.

You're quite right about the histogram, I just made a quick edit to make that clearer. I can't really get the histogram to be useful at all, to be honest, given the confusing disparity in some situations, between the live view brightness and the final exposure. Also, as you say, it dismisses when you exit exposure comp.

As regards the lens being prone to smear, I didn't go into it because it's a universal weakness of devices of this type. I've been using the hard case, which has a neat little cover, but this isn't perfect, because it makes the delicate 'two press' action of the shutter button harder to guage. Some things are still nicer on a 'proper' camera ;)

Just to share, Damian Dining, one of the chief engineer that give birth to the pureview, did share that should a lens cover to be included, it will make the lens area thicker by 2mm. Not everyone wants that sort of thickness. Just to share that apparently lots of stuff have been thought of during the designing phase.

@peter32: I'm sure they did discuss it, but having made that decision they I think they should have put a snap on cover in the box so we have the option of choosing for ourselves.

I know they sell covers with built in caps (and I have one on order) but considering the purchase price, I feel that something should have been in the box. Particularly since it may well be 4 months before my cover actually arrives...

@magneto shot: I'd say you did! Bought mine from an authorized seller too, and I got the standard contents of the box, nothing more, nothing less.

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